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the great match
How is it possible that children living in the most distant
corners of the Mongolian steppes know who Ronaldo is?
‘The Great Match’ is a comedy in three parallel stories about the
trials and tribulations of a group of men who have two things
in common: they live in remote regions of the planet, and they
are determined to watch the final match of the Japan-Korea
2002 World Cup between Germany and Brazil.
A family of Mongolian nomads, a Tuareg camel caravan in the
Sahara, and a group of Amazon Indians are our leading characters. All of them live hundreds of kilometres from the closest
place where they can watch television, or they must face great
difficulties getting there. However, these men have the ingenuity and willpower to achieve their goal.
In a world in which access to information is seemingly simple
and immediate, it is possible to live any world event in real time
from a comfortable couch in our homes. However, what happens in the most isolated places on earth? Do people live their
lives outside this information? Do they have access to it?
It is not easy to have a television set, a power generator or
a satellite dish available in these places. Nevertheless, these
people are informed of everything going on in the world today,
especially the feats of their sport heroes. How do they manage?
In the most astonishing ways. This is what ‘The Great Match’
attempts to unveil, the plight of a group of men isolated on
the far edges of the planet, but determined to do everything to
watch a football match.
GERARDO OLIVARES
AMAZONAS (BRAZIL)
Gerardo Olivares has been involved
as director of wildlife, cultural and
anthropology documentaries since
1991, with the participation of
Canal+ and TVE, and then sold
internationally (Discovery Channel,
National Geographic).
His last documentary ‘Caravana’
was produced by Pedro Almodovar’s
El Deseo.
THE FILM’S ORIGINS
It all began on a trip to Mongolia. It was November 2001 and I
was looking for locations for a documentary. In the Altai mountain range I came across a line of travelling nomads. There was
an old television on the back of one of their horses. I asked them
where they were going. “To the iron tree”, replied the one who
looked like the chief. I wondered what was so special about a tree
to attract a group of Mongols from across the steppe.
“It isn’t a tree”, the chief told me, “it’s some pieces of iron that
the soldiers left behind and they work like an antenna. It’s the
cup final.”
The World Cup final.
Throughout my travels in Niger, Mongolia and the Amazon
jungle, I have always found people who live completely cut off in
the jungle or in the desert, or hunt with golden eagles... and who
know which number Ronaldo wears on his back and how Zidane
scored his latest great goal.
That is how this film came about. In the film I want to show the
adventures of these people who live in the most remote places
on earth and share the passion for football. People who change
their lives and are capable of covering many kilometres to watch
a match.
People who dream of watching The Great Match.
Gerardo Olivares
WANDA FILMS
Xama invited me to go hunting with him.
While he was shooting monkeys with a
blowpipe he told me of his latest argument
with his wife.
He was born in the heart of the Amazon,
in the Sanema Indian community. He has
always lived in the depths of the jungle.
But one day the timber merchants arrived...
And they taught him about football. And he
loves it. But his family doesn’t understand it.
TENERE DESERT
(NÍGER)
ALTAI MOUNTAINS (MONGOLIA)
In the Altai mountains there is an ethnic group that
hunts with golden eagles. The children learn to ride a
horse first, and then they learn to walk.
Talaikhan is 50 years old and worked for many years in a Russian coal mine. That is where he watched his first football match.
Today his brother Kumarkan got cross with him. He told me that
two foxes escaped when they were out hunting. Talaikhan hadn’t
been paying attention. He was listening to the radio with his headphone. It was the Russian league final.
WANDA FILMS, founded by José
María Morales and Miguel Morales,
was created in 1992 and is a company specialized in the production
and distribution of European and
Latinamerican independent cinema.
WANDA has distributed more
than 100 films, among them works
by Krzysztof Kieslowski, Roman
Polanski, Claude Chabrol, Wong
Kar-Wai, Wolfgang Becker and produced more than 30 feature films
by directors such as Fernando Pérez
(‘Suite Habana’, ‘Madrigal’), Arturo
Ripstein (‘Profundo Carmesi’, ‘Así
es la vida’), Lucrecia Martel (‘La
Cienaga’), Carlos Sorín (‘Historias
Mínimas’, ‘Bombón – El Perro’),
Costa Gavras (‘Le Couperet’),
Daniel Burman (‘El abrazo partido’,
‘Derecho de Familia’), Sigfrid
Monleón (‘La Bicicleta’).
GREENLIGHT MEDIA
I’ve seen them crossing the dunes in silence.
They’re the salt merchants.
Hassan El Hadji, a noble Tuareg, leads the
expedition. Today he told me that he has been
crossing the desert the whole of his life, and that
he worked as a translator for a German nongovernmental organisation for five years.
He asked after Oliver Kahn, the famous German
goal keeper. He likes football. He discovered it
through his German friends who gave him an
old television. He’s had to convince some lorry
drivers to lend him a battery, but he is still worried. Some twisted old bits of iron might work as
an aerial, but how does the signal reach Teneré?
Greenlight Media AG, a leading
German production and international distribution company,
provides development, finance,
production and distribution for
international quality films. It is
committed to delivering strong entertainment brands to audiences all
around the world in both film and
non-film media. Founded in 1993,
Greenlight Media took off with the
launch of the wildly successful animated TV series ‘SimsalaGrimm’,
which has since been distributed
to over 120 territories worldwide,
making it Germany’s number
one exported TV series of all
time. ‘Deep Blue’, Greenlight
Media’s 2003 BBC Worldwide
co-production Event Documentary,
was the most successful German
film abroad in 2004.
INTERNATIONAL SALES
TEL
FAX
EMAIL
WEB
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
TEL
EMAIL
THE MATCH FACTORY GmbH
EUROPEAN FILM MARKET, no.123
+49 30 246 497-460
+49 30 246 497-461
EFM@MATCHFACTORY.DE
WWW.THE-MATCH-FACTORY.COM
Yolanda Ferrer
WESTIN GRAND HOTEL
+34 696 96 58 96
PRENSA@WANDAVISION.COM
THE
GREAT
MATCH
THE GREAT MATCH
CAST
ORIGINAL IDEA
SCRIPT
ORIGINAL SOUND
SOUND EDITING
SOUND MIXING
ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
EDITING
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
CO-PRODUCERS
PRODUCER
DIRECTOR
ORIGINAL TITLE
ORIGINAL LANGUAGE
RATIO
SOUND
LENGTH
FORMAT
Ahmed Alansar, Mahamadou Alzouma,
Esentai Samer Khan, Khoshibai Edil Khan,
Wirapitang Kaapor, Kinchiran Kaapor
Gerardo Olivares
Chema Rodríguez
Carlos de Hita
Juan Ferro
Alfonso Raposo
Martín Meissonnier
Rori Sainz de Rozas
Miguel Morales, Stefan Beiten, Nikolaus Weil
Sophokles Tasioulis, André Sikojev
José María Morales
Gerardo Olivares
La Gran Final
Kazajo dialect (Mongolia)
Tamashek (Niger)
Tupí (Brasil)
1 : 1,85
Dolby SRD
88 minutes
35mm
A FILM BY
GERARDO OLIVARES
World Sales